I The Behrend Beacon
The Behrend Beacon
Published Weekly b\ the students of Penn State line
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Beacon
Penn State Erie,
The Behrend College
First Floor, The J. Elmer Reed Union Building
Station Road, Erie, PA 16563
Contact the Beacon at:
Telephone: (814) 898-6488
Fax: (814) 898-6019
The party's over
It’s all come down to this. Every test,
every quiz, all the studying, as well as
all the partying is about to be emblema
tized by a piece of paper that’ll I’ll
spend way too much on a frame for.
I’m graduating.
From here on in, I’ll be forced to be
a mature adult who wears a tie and
shirt, that barely match may I add, on a
regular basis except for designated days
such a “Casual Friday.” From here on
in, I’ll be spending my Saturday nights
organizing my sock drawer and build
ing a ship in a bottle. I’ll read biogra
phies about the wives of past presidents
and the butlers of famous architects.
The party’s over.
Or is it? I don’t feel any different. I
still fell like the same guy who drunk
enly slept on a loading dock in the rain
on a Canadian adventure gone awry. I
still felt like the same guy who just
graduated high school and is ready for
the wild possibilities of dorm life.
On a regular basis, my friend Dan, an
account manager for a business that
will remain nameless, reminds me that
graduation isn’t the end of fun. You
may remember Dan from an article I
wrote about a ghost attacking him in his
sleep or the theoretical pizza shop
brawl. He acts as a shining beacon of
post-gradate fun for me to follow.
Dan recently met his hero James
Dewees of Reggie and the Full Effect
after the injury filled concert in the
Junker a week ago. This five-minute
conversation with the former Get Up
Kids keyboardist has inspired Dan to
take his “screw you” outlook to new
heights. Last week, I called Dan and
told him to come out for a party. He
said it had been a rough workweek and
that he was really tired. After calling
him several expletives, I reminded him,
“What would James do?”
“He’d say, ‘[explicative] it. We’re
going to [explicative] party tonight,”’
Daniel J. Stasiewski, Editor in Chief
Amy Frizzell, Managing Editor
Courtney Kaplin, Advertising Manager
Alyssa Peconi, Public Relations Manager
Dr. Cathy Roan, Adviser
News Editor
Brad Stewart
Assistant News Editor Calendar Page Editor
Dan Snedden Rob Frank
Sports Editors
Sam Cibula
Sara Kamber
Opinion Editor
Andy McNeil
Photography Editor
Danielle Faulkner
Dan roared. He promised to be at the
party by 10. Was he there? Did he
show with a keg in each arm shirtless
covered in spray paint? No. Did he
show at all? No. 1 can safely say that
there is no possible way that a man of
Dan’s stature could have snuck into this
crowded party. I was there until at least
3 a.m. and there was no sign of Dan.
I called him the next morning and
inquired to his whereabouts on the per
vious night. “Dude, I went to take a nap
and I feel asleep. I didn’t wake up till
three,” he said in a bashful tone. After
several brash and devastatingly cun
ning comments from me, I calmed
down and began to realize my fate.
Maybe this really is the end. I’ll
have to start adding more fiber to my
diet. I’ll have to set down and find a
wife. I’ll have to learn to bear with my
job even though the guy in the next
cubicle sounds like Kermit the frog.
The weight of an ever rising and falling
capitalist system will be strewn onto
my shoulders.
But why worry? Only 43 more years
until my senior citizen discount kicks
into effect.
OPINION
Student Life Editor
Lori DeFabio
Copy Editors
Lacy Buzard
Jenn Haight
Sarah Weber
Beacon Assistant
Carolyn M. Tellers
Andy McNeil
opinion editor
Stem Cell:
After Chuck Pennacchio spoke to
students on April 2 about how the
Republican Party has been “hijacked”
and how an unborn child is not a baby,
multiple people came up to my friend
and me to confront us about our conser
vative ideas. One person in particular
looked us right in the eye and asked,
“Do you want me to die?”
What do you say to that? We didn’t
have any clue what this person was
talking about; but since the previous
discussion had been about our pro-life
stance, we easily made the transition
into embryotic stem cell research.
Life begins at conception. A
woman’s body prepares itself to harbor
another life in an ongoing month-long
process. Once the body realizes that
there is nothing to take care of, it expels
all the nutrients that it has saved up and
begins the process all over again.
In his article “Opinion: When are we
obligated to human life,” Prof. Steven
S. Clark says, “During fertilization, two
already living cells, a sperm and an
egg, unite to form an embryo. This is a
complex process, occurring over two
days and involving multiple events...”
(This article can be found on
www.stemcells.wisc.edu.)
So after only two days, the woman’s
body is set to take care of another life,
one that was formed by “two already
living cells.” Voila! It’s a life. So what
if it’s not completely grown yet; neither
is a two-year-old, but we don’t kill
them for stem cells.
Evil is your only choice
Human nature is nasty, greedy and all
around rotten. The core values of what
it is to be human have changed very lit
tle since we crawled out of the slime or
He blinked us into existence, whichev
er you prefer. In fact, the Old Testament
is mostly about rotten old yahooties
being punished by the guy in the sky
for raping their sheep, daughters and
other farm animals.
However the Old Testament isn’t the
only man made institution that encour
ages people not to be so awful, there’s
also the church as a whole, our glorious
education system and the ever popular
concept of government. All these things
are intended to take the edge off the
evil is that is mankind. Alas, all these
institutions are carried out by members
of the human race and thereby take on
a personality of their own and become
even more corrupt and self-interested
than the people they are intended to
lord over.
These are sad facts of human reality.
We hijack the institutions we create to
safe guard ourselves and end up worse
off that we started in many ways. Some
very smart people have recognized this
fact in the past and acted on it.
Take for example, the founding
fathers. Essentially, the founding
fathers convinced rich people on this
side of the ocean that they could make
more money by violently taking over
the big fat British investments that were
the thirteen original colonies. The
founders knew that they were indentur
ing themselves to the greed of those
that monetarily backed the American
Revolution, however they slipped one
past the money men via the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
How so? We’ve got freedom of
speech and the right to bear arms. If
government officials stops serving us
we can cry foul and fall back on the
unspoken threat to point guns at said
government officials if they fail to
shape up. The founders knew that gov
ernment inevitably becomes hijacked
by the greediest, nastiest people with
Letter to the editor: Graduation process clarified
Dear Editor,
The graduation process followed this
year is the same as past years.
Throughout the course of the year,
students anticipating graduation for
spring 2005 have been provided infor
mation in the following ways:
- Page 9 of the Spring 2005 Schedule
of Courses booklet gives graduation
information; this booklet was available
on October 15, 2004
On Jan. 7, Carol Tobin in the regis
trar’s office sent a personal e-mail to
each student eligible to graduate
reminding them to set their intent on
Do I want you to die?
Lacy Buzard
copy editor
What is the process for acquiring
stem cells? “Following the termination
of a pregnancy of about 5-9 weeks,
some women donate the fetal material,
which would otherwise be disposed of,
to research. Pluripotent stem cells can
then be extracted from the part of the
fetus that would have developed into
either testicles or ovaries.”
(www.stemcellresearchfoundation.org/
Five to nine weeks is much longer
than the two days it takes to create a
life. And they take the cells from repro
ductive organs! A human beings repro
ductive organs!
Understandably, we want cures for
Parkinson’s, diabetes and heart disease,
but should we really be willing to sac
rifice a new life for the continuance of
another?
Chris Hvizdak
editorial columnist
the most money and they wisely afford
ed us a way to point that out. All our
fellow citizens can be aware of the ram
pant disgustingness. Nine out of ten
times the government can’t lock you up
for pointing out how corrupt they are.
Sure, that doesn’t mean a whole and
almost always amounts to nothing;
however, now and then it pays off. We
did get Nixon. We got him good.
At any rate, human progress is a very,
very slow thing. With enough time and
pressure we can eventually cut the wild
exploitation of ourselves by the
wealthy elite and our government down
to a minimum. Although such a refor
mation will probably take a few thou
sand more years and a couple rather
nasty wars.
The thing to remember is that those
who have hijacked our social institu
tions are no different than you and I;
they just have the power to be rotten on
a wider scale than we do. The rotten
people are self-interested animals just
like you and I. Don’t think of them as
Gods or holy men or deserving of spe
cial attention in any way shape or form.
The Great Hunter S. Thompson,
eLion; for an associate degree, or 38
credits for a masters degree were noti
fied.
- During the week of March 7, com
mencement brochures containing infor
mation about time and location of the
commencement ceremony, Senior
Salute Days, the cost of cap and gown,
the number of guest tickets available to
each student, etc. were mailed to both
the students’ local and home addresses
- On April 1, 2005, Dr. David
Christiansen, associate dean for
Undergraduate Studies and Academic
Administration, sent an e-mail to all
graduating students about the May
Friday, April 15, 2005
“Most of what we think we know
about human pancreatic development is
merely extrapolated from mouse stud
ies,” said Jon Odorica, a transplant sur
geon at UW-Madison Medical School
in a release published in July of 2003.
ells.wisc.edu)
The Stem Cell Research Foundation
confirms that stem cell studies are built
on the hope that human stem cells
mimic those of mice. Mice are much
easier to acquire than unborn babies.
Some may argue that women will get
an abortion whether it helps someone
or not, but abortion may start to rise as
a result. On the Stem Cell Research
Foundation’s question board, some
woman asked if she could get pregnant
and donate her unborn child’s cells
specifically to help cure her father.
Situations such as these place women
in more danger. They could now be
forced to reproduce solely to provide
medical treatment for others.
Pharmaceutical corporations may
someday have an entire branch employ
ing only women in order to produce the
necessary cells. It would be like the
breeders in “The Giver” by Lois
Lowry. Scary.
So, do 1 want you to die? It’s not
exactly in my nature to wish death on
someone who I don’t even know. The
question should be are you willing to
let unborn babies be disposed of (all
except their testicle and ovary cells)
just so you have a slim chance to live a
few years longer?
whom we tragically lost this year, con
tributed innumerable ideas to the
advancement of mankind. Perhaps his
most consistent idea is the humaniza
tion of authority figures. Take Hunter’s
word on that one. I can vouch for him.
Question your leaders at every turn,
don’t let them get away with anything
and assume they have the worst inten
tions. That goes for anybody. Asstatye
the worst and you’re probably right. No
matter who’s the President, Pope or
Librarian of Congress, if they’ve lied
their way that far through the machine
it’s wise to assume that they’re fairly
evil.
To continue worshipping on the alter
of the founders, I’ll add that they
roundly advocated being critical of
one’s own government, even in the
most severe of situations. The George
Bush’s and other assorted evil jerks of
the world will continue to do their thing
and the people they exploit (i.e. you
and I) will continue to do their thing. If
we’re responsible citizens and not igno
rant idiots who take the easy way out,
we’ll accost them at every turn and
force them to do what’s best for us and
not for them.
We’re human, we’re fallible and we
like taking that easy way out. Some of
us, however, are willing to do things the
hard way, bear down and address the
truly awful nature of the vast majority
of our species. Let’s all give ourselves
a cookie. Eventually, over countless
epochs of time our critical approach to
authority will be adopted by the masses
of sheeple who simply fall into line.
When that far off day comes, George
Bush and all the other monsters like
him will fade into the darkness and no
longer menace humanity. It’ll be an
awful lot of fun. Until then, the jerks
will keep doing their thing and we’ll
keep doing ours. If we’re lucky, we
might score an early win. Here’s to
looking out for an upset.
2005 graduation
- Information has been available on
the College Registrar’s website since
January.
Ultimately, students are responsible
for filing their intent to graduate.
The Registrar’s office staff welcomes
anyone with questions to call us at 814-
898-6104, visit us in 12 Erie Hall or e
mail us at regbd@psu.edu
Sincerely,
Members of the Behrend Registrar’s
Office Staff